I never told this story before. I have never verbalized it.
About a year and a half ago, I had a manic episode. As far as I am aware, it is the only true manic episode I ever had, meaning one with the intensity I have read about. Besides the imbalance of my brain chemistry, I am positive I know the source of the trigger that set it off. The trigger was actually a very good event. I will leave that story for another time. This story I am about to tell is an event that happened at the beginning of the manic episode. It contains a mixture of truth and fantasy, with erroneous connections between truth and reality. That is what you get when you look inside the mind of a manic person.
I was going to meet a colleague at a job site my company had set up at a water plant. The goal was to review where our equipment was placed and how my contractor’s trucks would enter and exit the site. I had already had some manic experiences in the previous days that were, quite frankly, out of this world.
On my way to the water plant, I stopped at a gas station to use the restroom. When I came back out to my truck, I could swear that was Jimmy Johnson sitting in his car talking on the phone. It sure did look like him, and it was a Mercedes. Really, I thought? Nah… I met Donny at the water plant, and we had been talking on the phone on the way there. Our conversation had shifted from business to our faith traditions, and we were just having a great time talking. I was telling Donny about my upcoming trip with my family to Daytona for the big race, the Daytona 500! I was super excited, and this day was my last day of work before our big trip. Donny got to the gate just a few minutes before me. When I arrived, we were promptly given gate access, and Donny followed me back to the job site. As we pulled up to the site, I rolled my window down as I stopped the truck. I climbed out of the truck through the window, Dukes of Hazzard style, stood up on the window frame the way a NASCAR driver would, and I raised my arms with two tight fists in the air and yelled, “DAYTONA 500 BABY!!! WOOHOO! YEAH!” I was on top of the world, and I felt like a million bucks! Donny laughed, and we joked about how stoked I was.
For those of you who are not familiar with bipolar mania, what I just described is very intense excitement and energy. While I have never tried cocaine nor plan to, I have come to the conclusion from talking to those who have that there seems to be a similar euphoria.
Some of my company’s equipment was already on site. Our goal was to figure out where the rest of the equipment would go and still allow for proper entrance and exit for the tractor trailers. As Donny and I discussed the locations, we measured out the space required for his trucks to drop a trailer, pick up a trailer, and then make the turn to get back out. Space was tight, but we had just enough room to make it work. My colleague from my company was coming the next day, and I wanted to mark off the area so he would understand what we needed to make this happen.
As Donny and I re-measured everything to mark it off, the conversation was a mixed blend of business (our purpose for being there), my trip to Daytona, and Jesus. We ran into a small snag as we started marking off the area. We didn’t have the proper tools and items to mark the ground. The site was a mix of gravel, so we started using our feet by dragging our shoes in the gravel to mark the ground. We were looking for anything we could find to mark the points. I found sticks and pieces of orange tie-down rope, and Donny got some plastic bags from his car to use as markers. We tried to clear the gravel down to the dirt to push the sticks in as a marker, but the ground was so hard the sticks would just break. Donny started pushing stones with his shoe to create a pile, and I joined him. Then I said something about how we were moving the stone away from the grave, and we both chuckled (reference to Jesus’ grave). Then Donny pushed the first stick into the small pile of rocks, and together, using our hands, we pushed more rocks up around the stick to hold it in place. There was a slight wind, and Donny tried to attach a plastic bag to the stick, but the bag ended up blowing away. As Donny was chasing the bag as it was blowing away, I said, “Hold on,” and took out some of that orange tie-down rope. I then pulled the first stick out of the pile, took another stick, lashed it onto the first stick perpendiculalry, and shoved it back into our pile of rocks and said, “Here we are: two brothers putting up a cross together.” It was a curious moment, but it felt awesome. We finished marking up the rest of the site with rocks and whatever else we could get our hands on, and we gathered back around our cross. We were both proud of what we had done together and talked about it a little bit before I told Donny I would meet him at the next site. I told Donny I was going to stop at this place that I had driven by several times on the way into the plant that had a sign that read: Prayer Circle. I was only going to stop there quickly and say some prayers as my plan. As I went to leave, Donny said, “You need to wash your hands!” I looked down at my hands, and after a quick look, I realized they were covered in black dirt from pushing the stones up around our cross. With that, I took my hands and smeared them on my face. I looked at Donny and said, “Here we are: two brothers who put up a cross together. We are the same regardless of our skin color, and God loves us both the same.” Donny gave a chuckle at my antics, but it was also a very serious moment for us both as well. I went on to thank Donny for being able to talk to me about my faith journey and Jesus and that I was very thankful for being able to build a cross with him. I washed up, and we made a plan to meet at the next site.
Our next mission that day was to head to a poultry plant to review an issue they were having to see if I might be able to add some of my expertise to the situation.
When I arrived at the Prayer Circle, upon pulling onto the dirt drive, I realized that the building next to it was an old church and no one was around. I decided to follow the road to see if I would come to a prayer circle (whatever that meant). While I did drive half a circle, it dropped me back on the road I had just come from. No dice. I rolled on. I really had no idea where I was going. Donny had told me where we were going and gave some general directions, but my plan had been to use my GPS to get there. For some unknown reason, I didn’t bother with GPS. At the light, I decided to let God guide me. With that thought, a group of what appeared to be high-end cars was heading towards the traffic light. Hmm, I thought. I must need to go that way. As I turned left to follow the group of cars, the first two cars at the light revved up their engines and tore off as though they were drag racing. Now I knew I was headed in the right direction. They must all be going to the race! I followed the group of cars until one by one, the cars from the group separated. I then began to look for another sign. 95 North was my next sign. I knew the poultry plant location was north, so 95 North it was!
There was a sense of urgency that day for two reasons. Donny had somewhere to be that evening, and I wanted to get home to finalize getting ready for my big trip. I still didn’t know where I was headed, but I knew I was going north, and that was correct. Besides, Canada is north, and I know a few people in Canada, and I like Canada, so this must be right I thought. As I increased my speed to “get there faster,” I noticed that I was in a group of pickup trucks traveling together. There were probably about six pickup trucks driving well over the speed limit. The truck out front was white with a custom tailgate. It was a black and white checkered pattern, just like the checkered flag on the final lap of a race. I knew I was headed in the right direction.
The group of trucks entered an inactive construction zone. The speed limit was now 55 mph. We were already doing 75 mph when we entered. I was in the middle of the pack. Quickly, three trucks fell off the pace, and there were just three of us left. I was now in second place behind the checkered flag truck. Soon, I was doing 85 mph, and the third-place driver dropped off, and it was just me and the checkered flag truck flying down the highway. I still had no idea where I was going. Maybe I was training for the Daytona 500? Would they be waiting for me when I got there? (Remember: I was traveling North and Florida is South) Maybe I was supposed to leave Donny hanging and just go straight to Daytona to get ready for the race? But how would my family get there? We were cooking, and I hit 90 mph, and the white and checkered flag truck was still ahead of me. I could smell the oil burning off my engine from an earlier mishap that took place with an oil change the month before. We both kept increasing our speed just a little bit as the miles ticked off. The construction zone was coming to an end, and I did what any good race car driver would do when the finish is in sight: FLOOR IT! I passed him doing over 100! I just won the I95 truck race, LOL.
Just as I “finished,” my phone rang, and it was Donny. “Where are you?” I was getting off the Dunn exit. “Where are you?” I asked as I apologized for being so late. He said, “I am in Newton Grove.” Well, of course you are, I thought. Earlier that day, I was talking to one of my former customers, now a friend, and he told me that I owed him some fig NEWTONs in response to our funny conversation we had that morning. Donny said, “You must be hungry. You want to get something to eat?” He continued, “I will find us a place and let you know where I land. Keep on heading this way.”
I finally hooked into my GPS and got myself headed toward Newton Grove. Donny called; he had found a little place out in the middle of nowhere. He told me it was the perfect little place. I pulled in at high speed, knowing I was extremely late, and Donny had been there for probably 20-30 minutes waiting. When I went in the door, I was sure I saw Noah Gragson sitting at the counter. It was a young kid with a camo hat, and it looked just like him. He smiled at me, and I waved. We ordered up our food, and to this day, I remember the food like it was the best meal I ever had. Donny and I headed out for the poultry plant, and there is no irony here, folks.
Donny was in a hurry because he had someplace to be that evening. We drove like a bat out of hell. Good, I thought, more race training. As we drove at high speeds on the back roads, I had my window open. I decided that it would be fun to do a little draft training. I put my hand out the window perpendicular to the mirror and moved it around to find clean air and dirty air. I drafted my mirror with my hand, taking away all the air, allowing me to move much more freely. It was a fascinating little experiment. Then we had a little fun passing the slow cars along the way. As we came to the little town where the plant was located, we slowed to proper speeds. There was a permanent electronic speed limit device in the town that tells you what speed you are going. When Donny went through the zone, the sign read 25 mph, thank you. When I went through, the sign said 25 mph, “Wash Hands.” I looked twice – what? I was on the phone with Donny because we were still talking business and Jesus. I asked him if he just saw that, but of course, he didn’t because he was in front of me. I was obviously having a hallucination, but was I?
The reason we were at the plant was to see if we could improve the problem that was occurring. I had been explaining to Donny on the phone what seems to happen in the poultry industry is there are outside factors that influence things. Meaning sometimes shady things are going on. This is well-documented, and even recently the industry had a news story of minors working in their plants. In our case, the material they were sending down the road was too watery. They couldn’t seem to get a handle on it, and that’s why I was there. We walked in, and the first red flag was the Superintendent wasn’t there, and we were told he had to leave and wouldn’t be back for several hours. This struck me as a red flag because when you are having an issue with a vendor, you would think you would prioritize your presence to resolve the issue when you know they are coming. Next, we checked the treatment system, and wouldn’t you know, everything was running perfectly. We couldn’t have asked for better. Donny had been there multiple times before, and the treatment system was running horribly every time. Once I saw this, I looked at Donny and said, “I’m done.” We walked outside to talk alone, and I told Donny, “I wash my hands.” There was nothing I could do given the situation, and I re-explained the possible crooked scenario that was going on here to potentially fix the supplier the way one person in charge may want or other deviant schemes that could be present in that industry. Donny and I went to another part of the process where his trailer was, and we had other discussions and then parted ways.
There is more to the rest of my day, such as seeing more NASCAR drivers and decoding license plates (I had a God-centered system – numbers – that I used to read the plates). In addition, the end of the day was a little scary for me as I thought people were following me on my way home. This caused me to take an odd route home, ducking in neighborhoods to “hide” or driving back the same way I came and/or going the wrong direction away from my house.
I am sure as you read this story, there may not have been much you recognize as normal behavior. Well, you are probably correct. However, what you need to keep in mind is this story is my TRUTH! There is one BIG TRUTH in this entire story. That is this:
The trigger that sent me into this state was actually quite awesome. One of the triggers was having community with fellow Christians in circle I am part of. This is what I was seeking, and it was happening. That excited me. That is what sent me “up.” You see, maybe the experiences I just described seem deranged and not real. Maybe you don’t believe anything I just wrote. However, this story is not about what happened or how I got to where I was. This story is about what I did with my circumstances. That is what matters!
My intentions, were completely God-centered. I was seeking HIM through connections to other Christians in order to live out God’s will. Bipolar or not, manic or not, I was seeing and experiencing God. Sure, it was mixed in with some non-reality. Does that matter? Did I harm anyone? No! I was focused on Jesus regardless of my mental state. Most of all, God was looking after me through it all.
I was seeking HIM through connections to other Christians in order to live out God’s will.
I will always hold a special place in my heart being able to build a cross with Donny and share in Christian community with him. In this case, it doesn’t matter how I got to the experience; what matters is what I did with it. For me, I choose to cherish the experience that we both had together as a BIG GOD moment.
Prayer: Thank you, God, for protecting me while I was in a manic state that I had no awareness of at the time. Thank you for helping me stay in control of my behaviors while I sought out you. You are an awesome God, and I love you and thank you for everything you do for me.
CAN I GET AN AMEN!?!